Also, just because you scrape a huge list doesn't mean you'll end up with a huge working list. It's as easy as copy/paste to create a packet but then you have to test it, weed out the bad sites...and re-test it. It can take hours to get a good packet out of a list. For some people that time is better spent elsewhere so a $10 payment is more than worth it.

OK, thank for the replies. It's my understanding that there are 100's of thousands of forums out there. Once you have a list for them all you have them, and they can be used for any sites you want whenever you want.

I have a pretty big (and growing) list of hugh PR dofollow blog pages. I can understand how people don't want to exchange lists, as each link dilutes the link juice on these pages.

For forum profiles, i can't see that many more members (profiles made using SS) makes much difference....

Hence, why are there lots of little lists on the marketplace?
Surely someone will make an uber list of 50k+ profiles, and its done...

OK, thank for the replies. It's my understanding that there are 100's of thousands of forums out there. Once you have a list for them all you have them, and they can be used for any sites you want whenever you want.

This is true, however, of those hundreds of thousands of forums, only a relatively small % will actually work easily with Sick. The others will be down, have hidden profiles, have custom fields or have some other aspect that makes them not just plug and play. That's where the hours of work come in.

For forum profiles, i can't see that many more members (profiles made using SS) makes much difference....

Hence, why are there lots of little lists on the marketplace?
Surely someone will make an uber list of 50k+ profiles, and its done...

You're somewhat right about new members not making a difference - for link value. However, an large influx of new members who aren't active can lead to an admin turning off registration, adding bot protection, banning users, making profiles private and other things.

There are lots of little lists because a 50k list would cost about $1000. How many people do you think would buy that vs how many people do you think would spend $10? The time and effort to create a 50k list is approx 100x the effort of creating a 500 list yet you may only sell 2-3 copies. Not worth it.

You'll see, once you actually start creating them, that while creating a packet is easy, creating a GOOD packet is not.

Thanks for the help. I've added some extra points. I'm not trying to be difficult, i'm just trying to understand further!

Originally Posted by mandom

This is true, however, of those hundreds of thousands of forums, only a relatively small % will actually work easily with Sick. The others will be down, have hidden profiles, have custom fields or have some other aspect that makes them not just plug and play. That's where the hours of work come in.

So wouldn't it just be far quicker to just fire off a huge list and save the ones that work to your file?

I'm assuming its the costs of the captcha's that is the problem?

Originally Posted by mandom

You're somewhat right about new members not making a difference - for link value. However, an large influx of new members who aren't active can lead to an admin turning off registration, adding bot protection, banning users, making profiles private and other things.

How many members do we have here using the software?
I assumed it wasn't that many..

Originally Posted by mandom

There are lots of little lists because a 50k list would cost about $1000. How many people do you think would buy that vs how many people do you think would spend $10? The time and effort to create a 50k list is approx 100x the effort of creating a 500 list yet you may only sell 2-3 copies. Not worth it.

OK, i guess its my assumption of how difficult it is to build a list. Once you've run a huge amount through sic, you delete the ones that have failed, and you have a working list.

So, harvest a list of say 200k forums through SB, run them all at a cost for decaptcha of $2 per thousand - so $400. Say only 25% work, then you have a 50k list for $400

The actual work is limited isn't it? Harvesting, and checking is all automated as i understand it.

Originally Posted by mandom

You'll see, once you actually start creating them, that while creating a packet is easy, creating a GOOD packet is not.

I guess that's what I'm going to have to learn! My problem is that time is very limited....

Thanks for the help. I've added some extra points. I'm not trying to be difficult, i'm just trying to understand further!

So wouldn't it just be far quicker to just fire off a huge list and save the ones that work to your file?

Yes, but you sick has limitations on how many forums it can really handle well in a single packet and just saving the ones that work the first time means you'll be dumping a lot of ones that could work with a quick tweak or on a lower setting, etc. Sure, if you want to just do it quickly you can run them and delete the fails without looking further - but you'll need a LOT of forums to get any kind of quantity and you'll lose a lot of quality.

I'm assuming its the costs of the captcha's that is the problem?

Not really. Because not all sites use captcha, not all people use captcha, etc. Just keep in mind that captcha services are notoriously bad so just because you're using them doesn't mean they're doing them right so a lot of the fails you get *might* be successes if the captchas are handled differently.

How many members do we have here using the software?
I assumed it wasn't that many..

I don't know but I'd imagine it's more than you think.

OK, i guess its my assumption of how difficult it is to build a list. Once you've run a huge amount through sic, you delete the ones that have failed, and you have a working list.

So, harvest a list of say 200k forums through SB, run them all at a cost for decaptcha of $2 per thousand - so $400. Say only 25% work, then you have a 50k list for $400

The actual work is limited isn't it? Harvesting, and checking is all automated as i understand it.

This is true if you're going to just trash any fails. However, I prefer to spend the extra time to find out if I can tweak the code to get a higher success rate.

I guess that's what I'm going to have to learn! My problem is that time is very limited....

If your time is limited then just do it the way you outlined above. What it really comes down to is this: It doesn't matter how you create packets. It doesn't matter how I create packets. What matters is that you do what works for you and I do what works for me. I'd recommend you actually spend some time building packets so you understand what the process is really like and then you may have a different perspective - or not. Until then it's all theory and basically useless speculation. The benefit of this software is that you CAN do your own packets if you want so you don't have to purchase packets if you don't want to - but for those who value their time more than $10 the packets are there and are a very good deal.

Keep in mind your ability to process also depends on your computer. Personally I'm working on a netbook so my power is limited. The biggest list I've ever run was 2k forums on 8 threads. It took 5 hours and I got about a 20% success rate. I had to re-run the fails several times before I improved that significantly. Those with stronger computers and faster connections will likely have better results.